KARACHI, June 11: The All-Pakistan Organisation of Small Traders and Cottage Industries has threatened to defy the order for the closure of shops in Karachi at 8pm, and warned of staging a sit-in on the M. A. Jinnah Road if the government forced traders to close their business after dusk.

Acting-Chairman Haji Mohammad Haroon Memon, city chief Mehmood Hamid and other office-bearers of the organisation said in a statement on Sunday that forcing traders to close their shops early tantamount to economic murder of the trader community.

He maintained that the city’s traders had been paying billions of rupees in revenues to the KESC but ironically, they had been made scapegoat for the utility’s failure.

Haji Haroon recalled that the government had been promising to provide the traders with relief and facilities, but had resorted to targeting them on the pretext of power crisis instead.

The government should check power theft and unbridled consumption of electricity in offices, as well as at the residences of bureaucrats, he said.

Mehmood Hamid said that traders could not be browbeaten with threats of fines and confinement. He said that the contribution from the traders of Karachi made 70 per cent of the national tax revenues. He asked the government should not compel them to pose a stiff resistance against the unfair treatment.

He said that the organisation was consulting legal experts with a view to challenge the order for the early closure of shops. He referred to the government’s claim of putting the country on the path of progress, and asked if turning the city of lights into a city of darkness could prove the claim.

He claimed that the KESC had been handed over to a foreign company at a throwaway price and the company did not have the ability to run a utility organisation. He said that the new KESC management, more than two months back, had stated that ships with two power plants set up onboard were due in Karachi ‘in 10 days’ but after the passage of 45 days now, the ships were yet to arrive.

He said that the government should have taken some action against the KESC management for its failure instead of asking traders to close their shops early.

Mr Hamid claimed that the early closure was causing a loss of up to Rs15 million a day to the affected traders.

He said that the Karachi chapter of his organisation would meet on June 14 to announce their future course of action.—PPI

Our Staff Reporter adds: Mr Hamid, talking to traders during his visit to different markets in the city, termed the new ordinance on controlling prices ‘anti-traders’.

If the government is sincere in controlling price-hike, it should first check profiteering viz-a-viz gas, power and petroleum products because the prices of other commodities could not be stabilised while the fuel rates are increased after every 15 days.

Meanwhile, the Alliance of Market Association, Karachi, has announced that representatives of small traders would hold a meeting on Tuesday at the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry to review the situation arising out of the early closure of business and loadshedding.